If it were me
by detectivejigsaw
Summary: Before their big Weirdmageddon fight, Stan and Ford have one more tiny one in the kitchen. Then, after Weirdmageddon ends, they have a little talk about what they "discussed." Just another one of my GF shorts about our (or at least my) favorite Mystery Twins.


The night before he asked Dipper to stay in Gravity Falls with him, Ford came upstairs for a snack (the nutrient pills wouldn't last forever, and he was trying to get used to eating regular meals again) and found Stan there with the same idea.

And some kind of sixth sense seemed to tell him who had just entered, because he didn't turn around or in any way acknowledge that he was no longer alone in the room.

Well, that was just fine with Ford, so he went about putting together his own, significantly healthier late-night meal.

The silence was only broken when Ford found himself facing a conundrum: he needed to get into the fridge for an apple, and he had not been paying attention to where he was going, so now Stan was directly in his path.

Of course, it was conceivably possible for him to just go around him, but this was _his house_ for heaven's sake, and perhaps some part of him wanted to assert that dominance, so he cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me."

Stan didn't look at him or budge. "You're excused." He stuffed a spoonful of disgusting-looking brown meat into his mouth, chewing noisily.

Ford grimaced. "Please move. I would like to get into the fridge."

After a second just borderlining insolence Stan scooted aside enough for him to go to the fridge and dig out an apple.

"You're welcome," he muttered under his breath once Ford was past.

Ford gritted his teeth. "Thank you," he said flatly, the words oddly bitter in his mouth.

Of course, Stan responded with the jab, "Huh, you do know how to say it." And then he turned to leave the kitchen.

However, by then Ford had had enough. He slammed the fridge door shut. "Stanley, you are being singularly unreasonable even for you. You jeopardized the lives of the whole world, _including_ Dipper and Mabel. Do you have any idea how many people are on the planet right now, and who could have been wiped out by your actions?" _How many could still be destroyed if Bill somehow manages to get into our world?_

His brother's shoulders slumped at the mention of the children...but just as quickly they tightened up again, and he responded flatly, before Ford could continue his rant, "Nope. And I don't care."

He turned around, and marched right up to Ford, jabbing a finger into his chest just like he had when telling him to stay away from the children. "You wanna know why? 'Cuz not everyone's like you. Just 'cuz you wouldn't have had a problem leaving _me_ there if I'd been the one sucked into the portal and you coulda just gone on with your life and forgotten about me, that doesn't mean everyone else is like that."

And then he really did leave the kitchen, apparently not noticing the way Ford's expression turned into a combo of shock and hurt outrage.

* * *

After Weirdmageddon ended, and after work got started on restoring Stan's memories, Ford said one night after watching another of the home movies, "You were wrong."

Stan glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. "Not surprised, but what about this time?"

"No, it's not like that. I mean-before Weirdmageddon, you accused me of something. The night before."

Stan squinted, head tilting to the side in thought as he tried to remember.

"We were in the kitchen, arguing. Again," Ford prompted. A few seconds later his brother's eyes brightened...before he grimaced in guilt.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"I shouldn't have either. But my point is-" Ford struggled for the right words. That when he'd been forced to erase Stan's mind, he suddenly understood exactly what his brother had been going through for thirty years. That he'd lost hope of ever having him back until Mabel and Waddles managed to spark some memories back to life, and as soon as that happened, he'd been filled with a burning determination to do whatever it took to finish the job.

Finally he went with, "If you had gone through the portal...I wouldn't have just left you there either. I understand that now." Of course, he would probably have had a bit of a soul-searching crisis first, knowing what was at stake, and he would have definitely taken some extensive precautions to try to keep Bill from coming through, but the idea of just abandoning Stan to something like that, no matter how angry he'd been with him at the time…

Ford shuddered a little inside. And Stan had felt that way without even knowing what kind of danger was waiting there.

Stan laughed bitterly. "Yeah, you probably woulda got me back twenty seconds later and it'd be like I was never gone."

Ford managed a smile. "Maybe not quite that soon. But my point is, even if neither of us should be more important than the entire world, I'm sorry for staying mad about what you did for so long."

"Yeah, me too."

They sat for a minute in relatively comfortable silence. Then...

"Want to watch another?" Ford held up a fresh movie reel.

Stan smiled. "Sure."

* * *

**I thought about ending this just after Stan leaves the kitchen. It would have been a perfect short angst fic. But in the end...I couldn't do it. I sacrificed art for heart (hey, I just created a new catchy slogan).**

**Hope you liked this anyway.**


End file.
